The Art of Giving
by WildMeiLing
Summary: Truly, it is the thought that counts. Written for the Christmastime story gift exchange.


_My first story for_ The Sound of Music _, and I'm giving it to you, **lemacd**! I hope you like it. (Sorry, no returns, ha ha.) I have enjoyed your stories immensely, so I hope I'm able to entertain you back, even just a little bit._

 _Inspiration and the title come from O. Henry's "The Gift of The Magi," a little gem which I do not own. I don't own_ The Sound of Music _, its lovely characters_ , _or any of the quotes from the movie that I managed to weave into this story._

 _Thank you so much to anyone who has stopped by to read. May your holidays be merry and bright - and full of stories to read and write!_

* * *

She stared open-mouthed, but nothing came out. The sight of his usually effervescent Maria standing speechless was a source of amusement to him. Had she not been so stunned, his chuckling would have irritated her a great deal.

Finally, after a few sputtering starts, she managed his name. "Georg!" It was a breathless sound, full of wonder, giving him a vague hope that he had done the right thing. He mentally crossed his fingers that she would be happy with him.

"Well?" he prompted. Her incoherent state was less amusing the longer it lasted, and beginning to cause him some concern. If only she would look at him, give him some sure sign that she approved.

"It's just… I don't know… How…?" She paused in her grasping for words and continued to stare at the object leaning against the large, sturdy desk in his study. "It's my guitar!" she blurted out. He was relieved to hear her manage a simple sentence.

"It is, and always will be." He moved to stand behind her, and placed his hands on her shoulders. He felt her relax at his touch, and was encouraged. He dared then to press his lips to the top of her head.

"How did you find it? I mean, how did you know to -…?"

He couldn't help another small laugh as her words trailed off. His breath loosened the precarious hold the bobby pins had on her hair, and her wayward bangs flopped down in front of her eyes. She reached up unconsciously to push them back from her face in what had become a frequent habit.

"Well, you see, it's almost my birthday -" He felt her stiffen at these words, but he pressed on. "- and Marta and Gretl were concerned."

She turned to face him at that. "Concerned?" she echoed, sweeping her bangs back again to reveal a furrowed brow.

"Yes. It seems they wanted to practice the birthday song, but their fraulein hasn't been interested."

She gave him her best attempt at a blank stare, but he was certain there were any number of emotions she was battling into submission. He was better at it than she. He suppressed a smirk as he watched her face - that once crystal clear map of her feelings - smooth out with great effort into something almost unreadable.

"Oh, I have been promising - … It's just there's so much to do, what with the wedding and trying to find my footing with the household and…" This time, she plowed both hands into her hair in a gesture of frustration, forgetting about the bobby pins, and when her arms dropped and her shoulders slumped, her hair was left sticking out in every direction. She had no idea, of course, and he bit his lip to hold back a smile.

"Come here, darling," he implored, taking her by the hand and leading her to the sofa. He dropped onto it, then pulled her onto his lap. Normally, she would quirk her eyebrows at such an overly familiar move, or laugh off his advances with a gentle, playful shove to keep him out of her personal space and away from the serious temptation they both felt. At the moment, she was so overwhelmed and forlorn, she didn't seem to realize the intimate nature of their seating arrangement. He took advantage of her oblivious state to do something chivalrous, and began plucking the useless bobby pins from her hair and tucking them into the pocket of his smoking jacket.

Not only did she not protest their potentially compromising position, but she leaned her head on his shoulder. "Oh, Georg," she said simply, closing her eyes.

"I know," he said in a reassuring tone. "It's a lot, and most of it is new to you, but you're not doing anything alone. I promise I won't abandon you to household management and childrearing and social obligations. We are in this together." He paused in his bobby pin retrieval to kiss her forehead for emphasis.

She seemed to relax again, but he knew there was a great deal going on inside her of which he was only recently becoming aware. This matter of the guitar - he hoped it would be the much needed catalyst for this conversation that was long overdue.

He felt her arms wind around his torso as he finished his task, then wanting to prolong the moment of physical affection, he combed his fingers through her hair, smoothing down the errant silken locks. His caressing released her unique perfume - the aroma of her shampoo mingled and warmed with the sweet summery scent of her skin. He could have stayed like that forever, especially since she unwound even further, burrowing her head in the crook of his neck and practically purring at his ministrations.

But there were very important things to discuss.

Then again, what rule said they couldn't be comfortable while having a serious discussion?

Either way, it was time, and he cut right to the chase.

"Maria, please tell me why you sold your guitar to the music shop."

He expected her to push away, but she only nestled further into his embrace. Most likely it was in order to avoid facing him, but he relished it all the same.

"Tell me how you knew," came her muffled reply.

"The others heard Gretl and Marta discussing with me your reluctance to sing with them, and Kurt offered that perhaps you wanted to wait until your guitar was repaired. But you hadn't mentioned any need for a repair to me, and I saw the look Liesl and Louisa exchanged. I had a hunch there was more to it than that."

He didn't mention how Liesl had stayed behind after he had shooed the others away, to describe a change in Maria she couldn't quite explain. She had held her voice steady as she spoke, but begged him with her eyes to look after their mother-to-be.

He had sent her on after her brothers and sisters with smiling reassurance, but she had voiced his own unspoken concerns, making them more real, more tangible.

Maria was the same, but only some of the time. She was quieter more often, less spontaneous and cheeky and irreverent; and her soul-brimming, sunshine-y confidence had of late retreated behind a tamer countenance. The sparkle in her beautiful blue eyes had dimmed. Instead her eyes held heavy, serious things in their depths, indicating a soul in quiet turmoil.

He was absolutely sure she wanted to marry him. True, it was a kind of a miracle to love her and to be loved by her in return, but it was not a miracle he doubted. She seemed happy to become his wife, their children's mother. Yet for some other reason she was keeping to herself, she seemed unhappy, too.

"This afternoon, after my meeting in town, I stopped in to check on the guitar, hoping it would be ready and that I could bring it home to you. Imagine my surprise when I found it on display with a price tag attached."

There was silence again. This subdued version of her was definitely unsettling. At length she spoke, but only to tell him she wasn't going to tell him. "I can't explain. You'll think -"

"I'll think what?" he prodded.

"I don't know what you'll think."

"Try me," he commanded gently.

He felt her sigh into him. "I did it for your birthday."

Well, that was something he hadn't considered. "But aren't you playing it for my birthday?" he asked, perplexed. "The children seem to think so."

"I-… I needed to buy you a gift."

"You don't need to buy me a gift."

"I did, or rather, I still do. But I didn't have any money of my own."

She was tucked tightly against him now, and could not have possibly retreated any further into him even as she sought, paradoxically, to hide from him. Was she embarrassed? Did she think he would be angry? He was taken aback, to be sure. And strangely hurt, although he couldn't say why. But not angry.

Without a doubt, he was missing something very important.

"Maria," he said softly. "Let me be certain I have this right: you sold…your guitar…to get money to buy me…a birthday present?"

The soft lights of the room glinted in her hair as her head moved up and down in a nod.

"But, why on earth would you think you had to do that?"

She moved so her forehead rested on his collarbone, freeing her mouth to speak more clearly. "I didn't think I _had_ to. I _wanted_ to. I wanted to get you something that came only and completely from me." At last, she leaned back from him to sit up straight. Missing the contact already, Georg caught up her hands in his and sought her gaze immediately. "I was allowed to keep a few personal belongings during the postulancy, but I really didn't have much to keep anyway. My clothes, which went to the poor; my guitar; no money."

"Darling, you know what I have is yours. If it was so important to you to buy something, you could have asked -"

"- for money? From you? For your own gift?" She rolled her eyes. "Oh, sure, I could have afforded something _nicer_ , but it would not have been from me."

"You didn't pawn anything to give the children presents for their birthdays."

"Not yet, but only two of them have had birthdays since I arrived," she said lightly.

"My point is, you gave Marta and Brigitta gifts, and they loved them."

Maria tried to wave her hand to dismiss his statement, but he refused to release her from his grasp. "I _made_ the doll for Marta -"

"With a pink dress, of course. She was enraptured."

" - and the book of fairy tales - that was the only other belonging that survived my childhood."

"Not just a book though."

"The edelweiss pressed inside." She smiled, her eyes softening as she looked off into her memory. "From our first picnic. You had just left for Vienna. I spirited the children away, up to the mountain." She shook her head, then looked back at Georg as if she had proven her point. "What does a sea captain need with dolls and fairy tales and pressed flowers?"

"Would you have dressed the doll in a little sailor's uniform?"

"Georg."

"Better yet," he suggested, his eyes glinting mischievously, "a habit and wimple?"

"Be serious."

"Maybe I am."

"I knew the guitar's value would be more sentimental than monetary," she continued, ignoring his last comments, "but it's a fine instrument really. And any sum it fetched would belong to _me_ , and I could spend it on…" She shrugged her shoulders in defeat. "To be honest with you, I had no idea what to spend it on."

"Then why?" He was so glad she was speaking openly, he almost didn't notice her bite back an immediate response. That was new, too, like the constant brushing back of her bangs. She was learning to rein in the words that would normally fly from her mouth. _I'm far too outspoken, it's one of my worst faults_ , she had told him once. And certainly, her blunt brand of honesty had gotten her into her fair share of trouble, but in his aristocratic world of smooth talk and coy speech, her forthright habit was a breath of fresh air to him. "Maria, please," he asked, staring directly into her eyes and causing her to squirm a little. "Don't hold back. Tell me."

She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh that caused her bangs to flop forward into her eyes. She stared at them with contempt, but they really didn't care, so she reached up to push them away.

Hair secured, however momentarily, Maria began to speak. "There's just so much to learn, and at no point in my life have I been qualified for whatever role I needed to fill. My heart's desire was to be a nun, but desire wasn't enough for that vocation. I had only twenty-four hours to prepare to be a governess."

"I'd say that worked out well."

"Beginner's luck. It certainly wasn't due to my experience, and there were times when a little diplomacy would have gone a long way."

He grinned, brushing her hair away from her forehead before she had a chance to do it. "Perhaps under normal circumstances. I believe the children's father in this case needed your more direct approach."

She smiled and leaned her forehead against his. He felt her hair flop down onto his head. She grumbled and sat back again.

"And this?" he asked, putting his hands on either side of her head and using his thumbs to sweep back her hair. "This is driving you crazy. Why don't you cut your hair?" Again, he watched her check an automatic response. "Maria?" he intoned, aware that she was still holding back in her answers to his questions.

She gave up altogether at the affectionate warning in his voice. "A baroness doesn't have short hair."

"What baroness?"

"Any baroness. A baroness should have long hair. One can't have one's hair done up stylishly for these parties one is dragged to unless one has long hair, can one?"

He laughed, despite knowing it was the response she wanted from him in an attempt to diffuse the tension she evidently expected. It didn't distract him from the things he was starting to figure out. With the baroness comment, a tantalizing piece of the puzzle fell into place, and he waited for her to keep going.

She dropped the off-handed tone and spoke simply. "Baroness Schrader has long hair," she said softly. "And I saw a photograph of Agathe. She had long hair."

A strange lump formed inconveniently in his throat. He tried desperately to swallow it, knowing if she was aware of his reaction to her words, she would misunderstand completely and he didn't want to lose her now.

"Maria -" he tried, but the lump caused his voice to rasp out her name, and he knew she knew it was there. _Damn!_

Her body tensed and her eyes widened, and he could practically see the explanation tumbling toward her lips.

"I didn't mean to find it! I mean, I wasn't looking for it. Friedrich had a genealogy project for school and I remembered seeing several boxes in the corner of the attic that I had assumed held old pictures and when I opened them I realized they must have been packed away more recently, but -"

"Maria," he said, cutting off her explanation. "You are not Agathe. You are not Baroness Schrader. You are Maria. That's all I want you to be. _Need_ you to be," he said, his voice low and trembling with the intensity of his feelings.

"I know I'm not, but they were - are -…" She closed her eyes, and he knew she was berating herself for not finding the right words immediately. He felt her pain pierce his heart. How could he not have seen this sooner?

"Your first wife was the epitome of everything lovely and gracious. Even if I hadn't heard that about her, I would have known from her picture. She _radiated_ it. And Baroness Schrader is the most elegant creature I've ever met - the way she walks, talks, even the way she speaks with her eyes." Maria looked at him sadly, her words threaded through with apology. "She wouldn't have to learn the ropes of running a household or how to choose a gown for a gala event."

"No, she wouldn't. She also would have petitioned me to send the children to boarding school." He watched her carefully, and saw something flash in her eyes. "You know that, don't you?" She tried to avoid his gaze, but he cupped her chin and pulled her back to him. "Have you truly been comparing yourself to Elsa?"

She flinched at his use of the baroness's first name. "It's just -"

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not marrying her."

"I know, but I have so much to learn and I _am_ learning, I really am! Until the moment when it all comes together, I figure I could at least do my best to look the part. I'm afraid I don't look very much like a baroness."

"I don't want you to look like a baroness. The only person I want you to be is Maria. She is the woman who holds my heart."

She blinked back tears. "Oh, Captain, I hope you mean that because I'm fairly certain Maria is all you're going to get."

"Then I am far more blessed than I could ever have imagined."

"You're too easy on me."

"You are too hard on yourself."

"I'm sorry I disappointed the little ones."

"They got over it quickly enough, and will be overjoyed to see the guitar has been, um, _repaired_. Besides," he continued, sliding his arms around her waist once more and interlocking his fingers behind her back, "it wasn't the guitar that worried them. The children have been concerned about _you_. They love you desperately, you know."

Any success she had had at keeping her tears at bay was completely overturned. "They're such darlings. Oh, how I love them, too!"

He laughed. "You don't know how long I've waited to hear a governess say that about my offspring."

She laughed with him, smiling through her tears as he relinquished his hold on her only long enough to offer her a handkerchief. "Well, they are. And if no one else noticed, it was the governess's loss."

"Please tell me one more thing. About the gift…?"

She sighed. "At first, I thought perhaps the children and I could bake a cake, and then we'd sing something special for you. Then, after I thought about it for a bit, I realized those things were fine for the children, but that I should have something more… I don't know. A _real_ gift, I suppose. I tried to imagine what the Baroness- er,…" She broke off when his eyes narrowed with frustration and concern, then picked her words more carefully as she continued. "I thought if I were better at being who I'm supposed to be, I would have spent an inordinate amount of time and money to choose a supremely perfect gift. As it turns out, I have much more time than money, and not so much time anymore. And I have not a clue as to what constitutes a supremely perfect gift."

"Maria, let me explain something to you. But first," he patted her knees, "up you go." She dutifully stood, then watched him as he crossed over to the desk. He scooped the guitar up in his arms and returned to the sofa with it, cradling it on his lap as he sat down. He nodded his head to the empty cushion next to him, beckoning her to take a seat.

"This guitar is an example of a supremely perfect gift." She started to protest, but he held up a hand to silence her. Much to his surprise, it worked. "Let me explain. You see, this is the guitar you played when you taught my children - our children - how to sing. This is the guitar I played when I sang 'Edelweiss' again for the first time in years. As I strummed these strings, I looked over to you and thought impossibly that love and admiration shone in your eyes. Love and admiration I did not deserve, and was probably imagining. This was the guitar I was holding when I vowed to be worthy of your love and admiration, real or not, and to be a better man. To become again the man I had been before I allowed grief and sorrow to relegate me - and my family, God forgive me - to a life of shadows. This is the guitar my Liesl has been practicing on, and lately, Friedrich as well. This is the guitar that helped the woman I love bring music back into my house and my children back into my heart.

"And that's only what it's been to _me_! What companionship it must have offered you - comfort in times of sadness, joy when your cup overflowed. Things it knows of you and your journey that I don't yet." He looked down at the guitar, smoothed his hands over its curves and trailed his fingers reverently along its neck. Then very softly, he plucked out the first few notes of the song he had heard his children singing on that first afternoon that marked the renewal of his life. When he had turned to a dripping wet Maria and asked what that sound was, convinced he was hearing angels.

He set down the guitar gently, then turned to Maria and took her hands in his again. He leaned forward and kissed away a few of the tears streaming down her lovely face. "Tell me, Maria, do you think I could have let some stranger pick it up without having any idea of its glorious history? Someone who had no idea of the miracles coaxed forth from it by these beautiful hands?" he asked, sweeping his thumbs across her fingers. "Do you think I could let that happen, darling?"

She couldn't speak again, but this time he wasn't worried, and he was patient as she found her voice - and hopefully, he prayed, her self-confidence. "No. Of course not."

"Do you think you could buy a more perfect gift than the sound of music you bring from that guitar? I've never heard a baroness accomplish such a thing. Ah, but my Maria. Such wonders she can perform."

"Georg."

"Maria."

"I love you so much. I'm sorry -"

"Shh," he interrupted, quickly bringing his lips to hers to stop her. "Don't," he pleaded against her mouth. He left a kiss there before straightening back up again. "No more apologies. And no more going it alone. From now on, if you have questions or doubts, you must bring them directly to me."

"I will try."

"No, my stubborn little fraulein. You will."

She hesitated, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "Alright. I will."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"That's my girl. Now," he said, pulling her into his arms and leaning them back against the sofa cushions, "about my birthday present."

"Yes?"

"I would like to hear the sweet voices of my children and their new mother raised in song in my honor."

He felt her silent laughter shake against his shoulder. "Alright, darling."

"And I want one of those same talented people to be strumming a very special guitar."

"Of course."

"You'll want to practice together first thing after breakfast, I'm sure."

"Yes, practice makes perfect, after all. And we want things to be perfect."

"Supremely perfect," he reminded her. "Also, I would like my birthday cake to be white with chocolate frosting."

"I'm afraid you've been outvoted."

"Over my own birthday cake?"

"The children have opted overwhelmingly for the cake to be chocolate as well."

"Hmm, figures. Alright, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. That was my second choice, anyway," he stated loftily. He brought his hands to her shoulders and eased her away to look at her. "There's one more thing."

"Oh?"

He stood again and walked back to his desk. He pulled open a drawer and brought out a bundle of delicate tissue paper. "I know it's much too early, but I wanted you to know the other reason I'm glad to have rescued that guitar from the shop. I'm afraid your Christmas present would have been…irrelevant."

She hesitated only a moment before joining him, then took the bundle. She unfolded the paper to reveal a blue cloth strap decorated with embroidered edelweiss. "Oh!" whispered Maria, as she studied the fine craftsmanship and exquisite detail of the handiwork. "It's beautiful."

"It is, isn't it? But there's hardly a point to owning a guitar strap without a guitar."

"Well, then it's a good thing you happened to buy a guitar today."

"I'll say."

She carefully laid the strap on the desk, then threw her arms around him with a force that nearly knocked him over. He laughed, reveling in the return of her exuberance.

"I do hope they gave you a fair price," she said.

"Ah, my dear, you can't put a price on something that can't be bought."

 _The End_


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